Friedrich Halm

Baron Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen (German: Eligius Franz Joseph Freiherr von Münch-Bellinghausen) (2 April 1806 – 22 May 1871) was an Austrian dramatist, poet and novella writer of the Austrian Biedermeier period and beyond, and is more generally known under his pseudonym Friedrich Halm.

He was the son of a district judge at Kraków in Poland, at this time part of the Austrian Empire. Early in his literary career he adopted the nom de plume of Friedrich Halm ("Halm" means a blade of grass or a blade of straw), and became one of the most popular dramatists in Vienna around the middle of the 19th century. His novellas are now regarded as more significant from a literary point of view than his dramatic writings.

Münch-Bellinghausen was educated at the seminary of Melk Abbey and later at Vienna, where he studied philosophy and jurisprudence, and where he began his career in 1826.

As a boy he took a keen interest in the theater, and from 1833 enjoyed the friendship of his former teacher, the Benedictine Michael Leopold Enk von der Burg, who encouraged the poet to offer his drama Griseldis to the Hofburg theatre. Its successful production in 1835 established Halm's reputation as a playwright and henceforth he continued to write for the stage with varying success.

Münch-Bellinghausen became Regierungsrat (government councillor) in 1840 and Kustos (chief keeper) of the Court Library in 1844, a position that Grillparzer had sought in vain. He was elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1852, and life member of the Austrian Herrenhaus in 1861. In 1867, he was appointed superintendent of the two court-theatres, but three years later resigned this position which disputes had made distasteful to him. His health also had been failing.

Friedrich Halm's earliest full-length drama, Schwert, Hammer, Buch, completed in 1833 but never published, explores three various routes in quest of happiness: that of the warrior, that of the artisan, and that of the artist. This massive drama of several hundred pages, although still a piece of 'juvenilia', has numerous effective passages and anticipates the literary talent that was to burst upon the Viennese literary scene just three or four years later with the publication of Halm's tragedy, Griseldis. Of his many dramatic works the best known are, indeed, Griseldis (1837); Der Adept (1836; publ. 1838), Camoens (1838), Der Sohn der Wildnis (1842), and Der Fechter von Ravenna (1857). Griseldis is based on the well-known story of the faithful wife whose loyalty and devotion are put to the severest tests but who triumphs in the end. Der Sohn der Wildnis ("The Son of the Wilderness") is a romantic drama depicting the power of womanly love and virtue over rude barbarian strength. It was presented on the English stage under the title of Ingomar the Barbarian. Der Fechter von Ravenna ("The Gladiator of Ravenna"), regarded as one of Halm's best dramas, is a tragedy having for its hero Thumelicus the son of Arminius, the liberator of Germany from Roman rule. All of these are distinguished by elegance of language, melodious versification and clever construction, and were for a time exceedingly popular.

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